Later this week, we will begin our unit on Physical Science as we explore the question What are some forms of energy?

Objectives:

• Describe how energy changes from one form to another.
• Define potential and kinetic energy.
• State the law of conservation of energy.

Assignments:

• Investigate: Changing Energy Lab Report
  
• RS 29-30

Congratulations to Mrs. Scott and her husband on the birth of their new baby!

Objectives:

• Express knowledge of Earth’s weather patterns.
• Demonstrate how to use a sling psychrometer to measure relative humidity
• Use a digital camera to capture video. Use a computer to arrange the captured clips into a presentation.

Assignments:

• Relative Humidity Documentary (Tuesday)
• Chapter 6 Assessment (Thursday)

Thanks for all your thoughts and well-wishes as Mrs. Zehring and I welcomed home our new son, Nathan. Both mother and baby are very healthy and happy to be home. Special thanks to our guest teacher Mrs. Hardy and our Arizona Youth Partnership instructor Mr. Short.

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• Abstinence Training parents meeting 8 AM, Wednesday, October 8. A representative from Arizona Youth Partnership will speak with parents about their program and answer any questions. Students will participate in the program October 20-24.
• We’re bumping the Chapter 6 test! We will continue with the test the week of October 27. With all the work we did with sling psychrometers last week, we didn’t have time to read through all of the weather chapters.
• Sorry for the downtime. Edublogs.org upgraded their service, and we lost access this weekend. Everything should be up and running even faster than before.

And now…

This week, we answer the question How can you track severe storms? We’ll put together our understanding of high and low pressure, warm and cold fronts, and data analysis to find out how meteorologists and scientists track and predict severe storm movement.

Objectives:

• Understand how to track the path of a hurricane.
  
• Understand how weather is forecast.
  
• Describe different types of severe storms.

Vocabulary:

• thunderstorm
• tornado
• hurricane
• blizzard

Assignments:

• Hurricane Tracking map and conclusions
• Worksheet RS 52-53

Types of Clouds

In the comments section, describe which clouds bring precipitation and severe weather.

When a warm air mass moves into a cold air mass, the result is a warm front.

When a cold air mass moves into a warm air mass, a cold front occurs.

In both warm and cold fronts, the warm air rises above the cold air mass, as illustrated in the image below.

The red water baloon represents a warm air mass. The blue water baloon represents a cold air mass. The cold air mass sinks, because it is much colder and more dense than the air around it. The warm air mass floats because the air inside it is warmer and less dense.

We also started an investigation that we will summarize next week answering the question “What is weather?” Using sling psychrometers, each group measured the wet-bulb and dry-bulb temperatures of the air at various locations around our school.

Announcments:

We need volunteers for Fall Hullabaloo clean up! If any parents of current Zixth Grade students are interested in volunteering from 9 PM – 9:30 PM for the Fall Hullabaloo booths, please comment on this post.

Baby Zehring will be here any day! Keep checking back for updates on our family and our class.

Objectives

• Map the composition of the atmosphere.
• Identify the layers of the atmosphere.
• Recognize how the sun affects the atmosphere.
• Main Idea and Details: Look for the details that describe the atmosphere.
• Technology: Create a plain text file and save it in a new folder on a networked drive.

Key Vocabulary

• atmosphere
• troposphere
• stratosphere
• mesosphere
• thermosphere
• exosphere

Assignments

• Investigate: Layers of the Atmosphere lab report and graph on page 245
• Atmospheric layers diagram
• Reading Support 48-49
• Plain text files saved on district server